Actionscript Cookbook

5.2. Converting Between Different Number Systems

Problem

You want to convert a number between different bases (decimal, binary, hexadecimal, etc.).

Solution

Use the parseInt( ) function with the radix parameter (the radix is the number’s base) to convert a string to a decimal representation. Use the Number.toString( ) method with the radix parameter to convert a decimal number to a string representation of the value in another base.

Discussion

No matter how you set a number value in ActionScript, the result is always retrieved as a decimal (base-10) number.

// Create a Color object.
myColor = new Color(this);

// Set the RGB value as a hexadecimal.
myColor.setRGB(0xF612AB);

// This displays the value as decimal: 16126635
trace(myColor.getRGB(  ));

However, if you want to output a value in a different base, you can use Number.toString( radix ) to convert any number value to a string representing that number in the specified base.

These two examples convert numeric literals to Number objects and output the string representations in base-2 (binary) and base-16 (hexadecimal) format:

// The radix is 2, so output as binary.
trace(new Number(51).toString(2));  // Displays: "110011"
// The radix is 16, so output as hex.
trace(new Number(25).toString(16)); // Displays: "19"

This example assigns a primitive number to a variable and calls the toString( ) method to output the value in hexadecimal:

myNum = 164;
trace(myNum.toString(16)); // Displays: "A4"

Note that the results from these examples are ...